Revolutions

Chapter 3: The Hogwarts Express

By Seadragon

~

I waited anxiously as the compartment door opened. A boy wearing an exasperated expression and carrying a backpack half stepped, half fell into the small room. His hair was dirty blond, and a lot neater than my own. He stumbled into a seat, apparently not seeing me. Only once he had settled into his seat with his backpack on the floor did he look up.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't see you." He jumped to his feet and grabbed his backpack.

"It's okay." I interrupted. "You can stay." I smiled tentatively and he grinned back. He dropped his back pack again and sat down across from me.

"I'm Alex Parker, second year, who're you? I've never seen you before." He asked.

"James." For some reason I didn't want to tell him my last name. I don't know why, it was just a kind of gut instinct to leave it out. "Er, I'm new, but I'm going into second year as well."

"Oh, do you know what house you want?"

I felt like such a moron, sitting here, but not knowing anything about where I'm going. I just stared stupidly at Alex, slightly slack-jawed. "House?" I asked, my voice little more than a squeak.

"Yah, there are four, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and-"

"Gryffindor." Interrupted a girl from the compartment doorway, I hadn't even noticed her open the door. She looked a lot like the boy who had helped me with my trunk, right down to the shocking red hair.

Alex grinned. "Nat! I was beginning to think you had missed the train!"

"Nearly," She grumbled. "Connor kept losing things, finally mum just sent us ahead, she said she'd bring him when she comes to the school."

Alex turned to me, I was already feeling a little left out, it was obvious these two were friends. "This is Natalie Weasley, her mum's the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

"And rightly so!" Natalie interrupted.

Alex rolled his eyes and I suppressed the urge to laugh. "Anyway, we're both in Gryffindor. Most Weasleys are."

"Excuse me?! All Weasleys are! There hasn't been a single Weasley who hasn't been a Gryffindor! Even mum, who wasn't a Weasley to start with is one! There is a Weasley in every year." Natalie said proudly.

"Yah, but only because you have so many cousins!" Alex retaliated.

"That's not my fault! It's grandmum's!"

I gave up and just laughed. They both swung around to look at me. Natalie narrowed her eyes at me, and I shrunk back a little.

"Who're you?"

"As many as there are, the Weasleys only have enough manners for one, very crude, person." Alex joked in an announcer's voice. Natalie swatted at him playfully before turning back to me.

"Er, James. I'm new this year, but I'm going into second year." For some reason I felt the need to defend myself against this girl. It was probably just as well that I did, but I didn't even notice that I had once again omitted my last name(s).

"You look familiar." She said abruptly. Alex tilted his head and peered at me from beneath half closed lid.

"He does."

"What's your last name?" Natalie demanded. I felt my palms go sweaty, why? I have no idea.

"Umm, Potter-Malfoy."

"I knew it!' She crowed, and I shrunk back once again. This girl was insane! She needed to be shipped away to a mental institution before she could hurt someone.

Alex was looking at me strangely. "I thought you didn't know anything about Hogwarts." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

"I don't! Why would I?" I said with a defensive edge on my voice, slightly angry that they would question me.

Alex was rummaging through his backpack furiously, tossing things everywhere. Finally, he pulled out a thick book with a triumphant "Ah-ha!" He flipped through it quickly and opened it to a page near the middle. He handed it to me and I felt my stomach drop. "Look familiar?" He asked me, pointing to a full color, moving picture.

I thought I was going to pass out. "That's- that's my dad!"

"I know." Natalie said, she said this as though I was a moron, which I certainly felt like. It seemed like she wanted to say "of course it is, stupid."

"But why is he in your book?!" I demanded, feeling slightly out of the loop.

"He's The-Boy-Who-Lived! What do you expect?" Alex said, looking slightly suspicious of me. I was getting slightly frightened, these people knew more about my dad then I did!

"He's the who?"

Natalie and Alex just stared at me. I felt like a circus animal, caged and surrounded.

"Your father is Harry Potter, and you don't know who he is?!" Natalie shrieked, the silence spell broken.

"I just found out about this bloody place this morning! I had no idea witches and wizards even existed! I just lived with my dads, went to a normal school, and gotten beaten on regularly by Roger Telhan!" I shouted back, half expecting other students to come barging into the compartment.

"That 'splains the black-eye then." Alex muttered, Natalie shot him a look that clearly said 'this is not the time'.

"That's right. That's why he left…" Natalie trailed off, staring into thin air. "He fell in love with the enemy."

I felt like my head was spinning. Why did these people know about Dad? Why didn't I know about Dad? What enemy? Left where? With a moan I rested my head in my hands.

"He was my mum and dad's best friend in school you know." Natalie said offhandedly.

"No." I said irritably. "I don't know."

"No need to be snarky." Natalie said sharply, she reminded me of a harpy in a left handed kind of way.

"Is there not?" I replied, just as sharply.

"Look, Nat, James, can't we just not discuss this now? We'll take you to the library and you can read up on the whole thing tonight, promise."

"Do you?" Natalie said. "How do you know he won't be a Slytherin?" She said the last word with such venom that I was surprised she wasn't sprouting fangs.

"His father is Harry Potter Nat! Of course he'll be a Gryffindor! It goes without saying."

"Humph. You're forgetting who his other father is. Draco Malfoy is as Slytherin as they get." Natalie near shouted, I glanced nervously towards the door, but it stayed closed.

"Doesn't who I am have anything to do with it?!" I yelled back.

Natalie scoffed and turned back to Alex. "I'm just saying, don't make any promises until you know anything for certain."

"Whatever," Alex mumbled, sitting back down and sinking into his seat across from me. Natalie also sat down, but closer to the door. I pulled my knees up to my chest and just stared out the window. The tension in the room was so thick you could have cut it with a knife.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, the compartment door opened again. This time it was a lady with a food trolley. "Any thing off the trolley?" We all leapt to our feet eagerly, anything to escape the uncomfortable silence.

I grabbed my money from the heap of robes on the seat, Alex got his out of his backpack, and Natalie pulled hers out of her pockets. I don't know what exactly I expected to find, but it was definitely far from it.

There were candies of all kinds, most that I could never have imagined, even in my wildest dreams. I was drawn the something called Chocolate Frogs though, it said they contained Famous Witch and Wizards Cards, and it would be nice to have some background information in this world I had entered at 9 o'clock this morning.

I paid the women for about ten chocolate frogs and sat down again. Alex and Natalie, both loaded down with tons of sweets, shuffled back to their seats. Inspecting one, I ripped open the plastic, and nearly had a heart attack as the frog jumped out.

Alex stifled a laugh as I made desperate grab for it. He stopped laughing when I caught it. I crammed it in my mouth and picked up the card. A man named Kaern the Bloody was scowling back at me. I read through his bio quickly, ignoring the fact that he was moving, I had already seen that in Alex's book.

Swallowing, I moved onto the next frog, this time I was ready for it. I shoved this one in my mouth too and scanned the card. This time the man in the picture was smiling knowingly at me. It said his name was Albus Dumbledore, it sounded somewhat familiar. After reading the first line of his biography, I knew where from.

"Hang on," I said, holding up the card. "That's the Headmaster!"

Natalie snorted but thankfully didn't comment, I realized I didn't like her much. Alex just smiled. "He has been since before your grandfather, James Potter, was in school."

These people were calmly spouting off more of my family history than I knew. I intended to give my parents a piece of my mind when I saw them again.

I went through about three more Chocolate Frogs before I thought if I saw another piece of chocolate I would drop dead on the spot.

A knock on the door interrupted the silence and Natalie called to whoever it was. "Come in!"

The door slid open and two older boys, about fifteen, came in. "It's about time for you to change into your robes." The taller one said. Alex sighed.

"What? Already?"

The other boy, a blond, nodded. "We're almost at the school."

Just as they were about to leave, Alex shouted for them to stop. "Hang on, James here is new, but he's going into second year, does he go in the boats or the carriages?"

The blond smiled. "Knew I hadn't seen you here before. You can go on the carriages with Alex and Natalie."

"Thanks." I said, and they left.

"Alright Nat, bugger off so we can change." Alex said good-naturedly after the two boys left. Natalie scowled but grabbed her bag, which presumably held her robes, and left. The door rattled behind her as she shut it.

Nervously, I changed into my solid black robes, Alex helping me when I got them twisted around or stuck. I thought wistfully of Dad's emerald green robes, and Da's silver ones, these seemed so plain in comparison.

"Y'know, you're the last person I expected to have to help into robes." Alex said matter-of-factly. I gave him a weak half smile.

"What can I say? I'm not exactly at home here."

"I know, that's the thing. You should be." He said, stressing the should. I bit my tongue to keep from defending my parents, there would be time enough for that later, and shrugged.

I had no idea how right I was.